THE PAPADOPOULOS NOTHINGBURGER (CONT.)

As our wonderful “neutral” media continue to try and convince us that the indictment of George Papadopoulos, a minor player in the Trump campaign whose efforts to involve Russians in the campaign never came to fruition are some kind of smoking gun, we have this excellent analysis/explanation by powerlineblog.com’s Paul Mirengoff.

Here are a few excerpts – which, I hope, get you to read the entire piece, every word of which is invaluable to understanding what a nothingburger the Papadopoulos indictment is (the bold print is mine):

Papadopoulos was in the news back in August, when the Washington Post reported that during the presidential campaign he sent emails to the Trump campaign urging that the candidate meet with top Russian leaders including Putin, but that the campaign repeatedly rejected this suggestion. The report said the emails were “read to The Post by a person with access to them.”

Papadopoulos’ plea (a stipulation of agreed upon facts) can be found here. As I read the document, it is consistent with the Post’s report that, while working for Trump’s campaign, Papadopoulos tried to arrange a meeting between the campaign and Russian government officials. It is not inconsistent with the Post’s report, apparently backed up by emails, that the campaign rejected the idea of having such a meeting.

…Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements, not to trying to arrange a meeting with Russian government officials. The latter is not, to my knowledge, a crime. A meeting between the campaign and Russian government officials might have resulted in a crime, depending on what transpired. However, there has been no indication so far that such a meeting occurred.

UPDATE: Here’s Andy McCarthy on the Papadopoulous case. Among his observations is the shrewd one that if the Russians acquired thousands of Clinton emails and then needed to inform Papadopoulos that they had them, this means that Trump and his campaign had nothing to do with the acquisition of the emails.

Can someone show me where in all this, there is any collusion between Donald Trump, his campaign, and Russians? If anything, it shows the exact opposite – i.e. that even if the meetings suggested by Papapdopoulos were collusion related, the Trump campaign rejected them.

In other words, a nothingburger.

Now, when do Mueller and his Democrat-stacked staff investigate the real, actual, undisputed evidence of Russian involvement with the Clinton campaign? Ever?